I didn't hit AMT until 2 years ago. My company went public and dumped about $30K (untaxed) on top of my gross. I use TurboTax for my taxes. It calculates the "normal" way, then AMT at the end of the process. You owe the greater of the two. In my case the difference was $940 this year. If I had not claimed my property taxes and home mortgage interest, the tax I had already paid would have been more than AMT. Once you hit certain income levels, the tax code starts playing little "phase out" games. You don't get to claim the same deductions as other people. The shoves even more of you income into the ravenously high marginal tax rates.
The bottom line is that I've reached the point in annual salary that it doesn't pay to work any harder. In fact, it might pay to work a lot less just to keep the socialist freaks out of my pocket.
So do I.
What are the little triggers you speak of?